Boone schools brace for another budget crunch

Monday

Feb 6, 2017 at 12:01 AMFeb 7, 2017 at 11:17 PM

By Jason W. Brooks Boone News-Republican

BOONE — Expected state funding and rising expenses have created more tough decisions for the Boone Community School District Board of Education — in this upcoming budget year, and possibly in the next several years ahead.

The expected increase of funding, currently being limited to about 1.11 percent by many legislators, would give Boone about only $120,000 in new money, according to the district’s business manager, Paulette Newbold.

With the district’s enrollment falling and the assumption of approximately a $500,000 increase in salary and benefits increases, the board will have to make difficult choices to work with less money in the years ahead.

“Our five-year total new money projection of $282,000,” Newbold told the board. “Our new money in the fifth year, even if we got 2 percent increase in 2017-18 through 2021-22, would only be $31,000.”

Boone’s certified enrollment — a complex number that helps determine state funding — dropped from 2.066.4 in 2015-16 to 2048.4 in 2016-17, and is expected to continue to drop by about 30 students per year over the next five years.

Perhaps more importantly, the number of students who live within the district and have open-enrolled out to other district’s schools went up by 54 this year.

“I don’t know exactly how we’re going to do this,” said Board President Kirk Leeds. “But we might end up having to cut services. We’re going to have to take a look at programming. All cuts can’t come from staffing.”

Superintendent Brad Manard presented a number of kindergarten ideas that might cut costs significantly, and he pointed out that the early retirement option the board utilized last spring saved the district about $120,000.

However, the uphill battle to do more with less will only get tougher, if education union settlements continue to produce growing expenses each year.

“We’re down about 23 total teachers from where we were as a district eight years ago,” Manard said. “We’ve made it work with a balanced budget each year.

“But it does seem like each year, things grow a little more desperate.”

Sharing possibilities that already exist, such as an industrial arts agreement with the Ogden School District, could be expanded, along with development of new ones, Manard said.

He doesn’t want to have an entire middle- or high-school program nixed in a way that causes the district to incur transportation costs sending students somewhere for the same program.

Board member Scott Degeneffe grimaced when Newbold broke out a chart that showed Boone’s predicted decline in various financial categories.

“That’s a terrible chart,” Degeneffe said. ” I mean, it’s a great chart that Paulette put together, but the line is going in the wrong direction.

“We’ve got to grow our enrollment.”

In other action Monday, the board:

n Tabled a decision to address early retirement and extended the deadline to apply to March 1. Manard wasn’t sure how much interest would develop beyond the six teachers — including four special-education teachers — who have already applied in case the option is offered by the board this school year.

n Heard from Boone High School Principal Kris Byam and Boone Middle School Principal Scott Kelley about the enrollment in the ninth-grade Inspire Academy.

Byam said 18 of the 19 students have showed major progress, and the number of total fall semester “F” grades went down from nearly 100 to 33 between 2015-16 and 2016-17. The number of multiple-F students was cut by more than half as well.

She discussed a budget that included mention of how state weighting is now only 1/10 of regular student funding, along with concerns about potential unfunded mandates from the state legislature regarding homeschooling.